Knowing that I'm a planetary scientist
and a space enthusiast, numerous people have been asking me about
Mars over the past couple of weeks. Mars seems to be capturing
people's attention and imagination, especially with the NASA Orion
and Mars One news lately. People within the industry can't agree
about what to make of it all, so the news media simplifies what they
pick up and bits and pieces get out into the public conversation.
When a marketing friend sent me a text message on Friday with a
question from her boss about the group of astronauts going to Mars in
five years, I knew I had to write about it.
To set the record straight: astronauts
are not going to Mars in the next 5 years. Astronauts are not going
to Mars in the next 15 years. I heard a news clip the last week where
the anchor stated that it's widely accepted that the generation of
our youth will land on Mars. This is not generally accepted nor is it
a presumption we can make. I hope that astronauts land on Mars while
I'm alive to see it, though nothing is certain.
Robotic probes have been to Mars. We
have several active orbiters and rovers on or around the planet right
now, collecting data for science. More scientific missions will
launch to Mars in the next few years. Whether humans go to Mars
depends on human considerations: funding priorities, technological
advances, perseverance, and most importantly, political will.
The biggest Mars newsmaker at the
moment is Mars One, the European company that wants to send a group
of civilians on a one-way trip to the planet and fund the expedition
with profits from a reality TV show. In the news lately is the list
of 100 candidates who may be selected for the expedition, two of
which are from my doctoral alma mater, one of which is a former
classmate and lab colleague of mine. I've eaten in his home, met his
wife and first child, and visited his church with him; he seems like
a perfectly sane and rational person to me.
Making smaller headlines is the news
about the MIT study that outlines how these potential astronauts
might die very quickly and news that the original reality TV show production company has
dropped the idea after they failed to agree on a contract. Others
have also reported that they have very little raised in funds, no
known hardware built, and contracted engineering studies with
reputable companies have not been continued. The chances of them
launching an expedition to anywhere other than this planet anytime
soon are laughable. The fact that they launched a IndiGoGo
crowd-funding campaign a year ago to take money from the wide-eyed
and believing public takes the laughter out of me and makes me very
wary of their intentions.
Just today, I read an article featuring
one of the 100 candidates calling Mars One a scam for encouraging the
candidates to donate money to the company and buy merchandise in
order to increase their selection rankings. He also reports that the
100 candidates have had no training and were selected based on an
initial video and a 10 minute video call. I had been using the
phrase, “one step up from a scam,” but I applaud the courageously
blunt wording.
I met the CEO of Mars One, Bas
Lansdorp, at a conference two years ago. He was a keynote speaker at
the the International Space Development Conference in San Diego. I
was working as VIP Relations and handled all of the keynote speakers.
I ended up having lunch with him and chatting with him even more
about his goals and mission. I received standard answers that didn't
really address my questions or provide any additional information. My
impression even at that time: great skepticism. “Quite honestly, I
don't think that it will happen, but I hope that he proves me wrong,”
I wrote in my personal journal. My skepticism has only increased.
 |
| Buzz Aldrin asking Bas Lansdorp a question. I'm in the red dress on the left. |
I had forgotten about this encounter
until I refreshed my memory by reading my personal journal. Buzz
Aldrin was sitting a few seats from me in the front row of Bas Lansdorp's talk.
During the question and answer period, the Apollo astronaut suggested
that Mars One could partner with the Golden Spike Company, a private
lunar travel company aiming to send astronauts to the Moon. Bas
seemed interested in the idea. Using my phone, I immediately sent an
email to Golden Spike CEO Alan Stern about it. Alan wrote back
immediately, so I talked to Bas about it after his talk and
introduced them via email after. All of that happened within a matter
of minutes. That is what happens when a millennial is sitting in the
front row with the internet at her fingertips!
I have no idea if anything became of
that exchange, but I digress. My point is, Mars One's actions over
the past two years have only increased my skepticism of their plans.
Buzz Aldrin has his own Mars transportation concept which will likely
remain a paper project. Dennis Tito's fly-by Inspiration Mars mission
with an older married couple seems to also have fizzled and died, or
if anything is still being worked on, it's unknown to me. Last I
heard, he asked NASA to help fund it, which is laughable because NASA
can't even fully fund their own missions.
Which brings me to NASA's Mars
ambitions. NASA certainly is serious about exploring the red planet
and has sent many precursor robotic missions, but funding and
political direction have been lacking and I see no signs that this
will change. There was so much publicity surrounding the Orion
capsule Exploration Flight Test (EFT-1) launch in December. A close
friend of mine was working that mission and I was excited for her.
But NASA PR was on overdrive, and not in a good way. Little of what
was reported was truthful about the complexities of the mission and
the future of NASA's human exploration program.
NASA is a government agency. Simply,
the President sets the direction and Congress gives the money. The
Presidential Administration and Congress have not been in agreement
about NASA's direction since as long as I've been alive. President
Obama said, “Let's go to an asteroid!” pretty much because it was
something different than what President Bush had said (his direction
was Moon-bound). Congress has been fighting him ever since. NASA is
hopelessly lost until the Presidential Administration and Congress
agree about the intermediate steps. But we all agree that Mars is the
ultimate goal, someday, somehow. It certainly won't be in the budget
and time frame they propose.
I'm only discussing human missions to
Mars here. There are several robotic missions on the red planet
operating right now: Mars Odyssey, Mars Express, Mars Exploration
Rover Opportunity, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Science
Laboratory Curiosity, MAVEN, and an Indian probe called Mars Orbiter
Mission. The European Space Agency will launch ExoMars in 2016 and
2018. NASA's Mars 2020 rover is under consideration. NASA and
partners have had huge successes in recent years sending robots to
Mars. This is a great and crucial first step to human missions.
When I was working on my doctorate in
planetary science, I spent the summer of 2012 working with Phil
Metzger at Kennedy Space Center. Through my study with him, I learned
that humans cannot easily land on Mars without a landing pad. The
regolith (dirt) is too light and unstable to withstand blasts from
retrorockets, so something as heavy as the Curiosity rover is about
the limit that the ground can take. A human-carrying lander would
blast a crater so unstable that they wouldn't be able to land.
Somehow, we need to send a robot up there to build a landing pad
before we land humans. There's also talk of using a robot to
autonomously build other infrastructure such as habitats for humans
when we land. The technology to do this is in the works but it will
take us decades before we figure out how to do it.
 |
| I blasted regolith-like granular materials (in this case, beach sand) with jets of gas and watched the crater form. |
|
 |
| I took microscope-scaled images of the regolith materials. This one is called JSC-Mars-1. |
I do have faith in one man to
accomplish what he sets his mind to: Elon Musk. Whether it's PayPal,
Tesla, SpaceX, or any of his other ventures, that man gets things
done. By modifying one of his Dragon capsules, he thinks that he can
land humans on Mars with the help of NASA in a mission called Red
Dragon. He is almost always overly optimistic with his schedule, so
this won't happen any time soon. He has his own rockets, his own
lander, and his own money, though he likely will need NASA's
assistance. His goal is to retire on Mars and I hope he gets there.
Though I'll have to see it to believe it.
Very little of what I see in the news
about humans on Mars is realistic or honest, and that's
disheartening. It's one thing to have a serious discussion about
whether we as a society are willing to commit to a multi-decade,
tens-of-billion or hundreds-of-billion dollar mission to send humans
to Mars. It's another thing to give soundbite answers about how we're
sending humans to Mars in 5 years, 10 years, 20 years. But the latter
claim is what catches headlines and gets people excited.
I want people to get excited about
space exploration! I worry that the kind of unrealistic discussion
that has been promoted lately will turn people off and reenforce the
notion that space exploration is a waste of money. As space
advocates, if we're not honest sources of information about the
industry, then why should the public and our legislators trust us?
Let us further an honest dialog and further humanity's progress in
our solar system.
